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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28979256">Sleepless</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/braiawrites/pseuds/braiawrites'>braiawrites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Folk of the Air - Holly Black</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Belonging, Book 2: The Wicked King, Continuation, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fae &amp; Fairies, Fear, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Lies, Mithridatism, Mortality, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Touching, POV Cardan Greenbriar, POV Jude Duarte, POV Third Person Limited, Pining, Pining Jurdan, Poison, Post-Book 1: The Cruel Prince, Secrets, Self-Hatred, Truth, Two Shot, soft jurdan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:40:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,112</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28979256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/braiawrites/pseuds/braiawrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world of faeries and magic, Jude Duarte has always done everything she can to make up for her humanity. She’s been successful, she thinks, until one night she is reminded of her biggest secrets. || Cardan Greenbriar, High King of Elfhame, hasn’t slept in three days. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s just that no matter how he tries to get comfortable, it still feels like something is missing. Or, perhaps, someone…</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Secrets & Nightmares</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In a world of faeries and magic, Jude Duarte has always done everything she can to make up for her humanity. She's been successful, she thinks, until one night she is reminded of her biggest secrets.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I did not proof this :P</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The night is still. Peaceful. Jude tilts her face up to the star-speckled sky, closing her eyes, basking in it. The wind whispers across her skin and she welcomes it, savours its touch, inhales its warm, floral scent. It is unusual for her to have a moment such as this, when she can sit out on the rail of her balcony, can seek respite from the endless pit of vipers that is the Faerie court. Can let herself indulge, just for a heartbeat, in a carefully crafted story, in which this land is her home and this world where she belongs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was looking for you.” The voice that speaks is gentle. Tender. She turns and hops off the banister, a smile already brightening her eyes, the ghost of it on her lips, though she isn’t quite sure why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Were you?” The words coming out of her mouth feel strange, but she smiles through them nonetheless. “What might his Majesty, the High King of Elfhame, want with me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I want many things,” Cardan says, a wicked gleam in his dark eyes. He stands close to her. So close. She can feel his breath on her skin, and the heat of his body. She looks up, meets his hungry gaze, the thrill of it setting her heart pounding. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This is all wrong</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Why had she let him get so close? Jude straightens, squaring her shoulders. She wants to tell him to step back. She opens her mouth, but what comes out is, “What kinds of things?” Her voice is a sultry purr. It is foreign in her ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He presses closer, until their chests collide with each breath, until he can lean forward and his lips brush her ear. When he speaks, his voice is soft, conspiratorial. But he doesn’t answer her question. Instead he says, “I know your secrets, Jude. I know everything you never wanted me to know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jude’s body goes stiff, frozen by his words. Her eyes are wide and unfocused. She is struggling to breathe, struggling to think. She wishes for the familiarity of Nightfell’s pommel, for its comforting weight at her side. She tries to swallow but her mouth is dry and her tongue feels too large. Cardan slides a hand around her waist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have any secrets,” she gasps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t lie to me, Jude.” His lips are on her skin, grazing a blazing trail up her neck. “I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cardan—” She wishes she didn’t sound so out of breath, wishes she could find the words to tell him to stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to know what I know?” The question is so quiet, fanning over her skin and disappearing into the air with his breaths. He pulls back just enough to see her face, searching her gaze like he can see right into her soul. “Do you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is shaking. She tucks her hands out of sight. “What do you know, Cardan.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiles, but it is not kind. “I know you. I know your truths. I know your fears. I know the monsters that haunt you in the dark.” He tilts his head, still holding her eyes with his own, and trails a long, cold finger up her arm. Over her shoulder. Her collarbone. Brings it to rest under her chin, angling her face upwards. “I know how you feel about me. You pretend it is hate fuelling you, but I know the truth. It’s desire, isn’t it? You want me, just as much as I want you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His other hand follows the first, tracing circles on the exposed skin of her throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her lip trembles. She wonders if he will choke her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he says something so much worse than any pain his touch could have caused: “I know that you’re afraid.” Even though his hand on her neck hasn’t changed, Jude can’t breathe. Her lungs are made of lead and her legs are shaky. If it weren’t for the banister at her back and Cardan before her, she feels certain she would have fallen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know how you run from the truth,” Cardan says, “how you fight so hard to find a place. But you are human.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wishes he would stop. She curls her fingers around the banister, leaning back as he leans closer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are </span>
  <em>
    <span>weak</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Jude, and no amount of fire can change that. As long as you stay, as long as you fight—it won’t matter.” The hand at her throat glides upward to cup her face. She wants to recoil from his touch. She wants to lean into it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His final words are so gentle, spoken like a caress, but they are a spear to her heart. “Jude Duarte, there will never be a place for you in Faerie.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>~ ~ ~</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jude’s body is drenched in a cold sweat, tangled in her sheets when she wakes. She thrashes, fighting the clinging duvet and damp bed sheets until she is free of them and shivering in the dark of her room. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Breathe</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she reminds herself, staring up at the ceiling and forcing herself to inhale the stale air. She can smell the salt of her own perspiration in the air, can feel it sticking to her skin. Her vision blurs as the first tears well in her eyes. She lets them, just for the moment, because first she has to remember to </span>
  <em>
    <span>breathe, Jude, breathe</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her ragged breaths are loud in the endless dark, each one crashing into her ears like the roar of ocean waves. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was a dream. A nightmare,” she whispers into the dark. “Not real.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except that it was, because the proof of it was in the lie that just passed her lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jude inhales and tries to blink away the tears. She pushes herself up, pulling her knees to her chest. She feels small in the aftermath of the dream. In the wreckage of those words. The tears drip from her nose, her chin, forming dark patches on the grey of her blankets. Her hair is a tangled mess, sticking to her sweaty forehead, to her tear-slick cheeks, so she gathers it back from her face, stands, and goes to the dresser where a pitcher of cold water sits. It soothes the burning of the salt on her face as she splashes it across her skin, not caring that it has soaked her shirt and dripped from the dresser top down to the floor. She stands in the growing puddle, staring at her reflection in the mirror as she tries to find some truth in what she sees. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chestnut hair falling in wet strands around a heart-shaped face. Haunted walnut eyes surrounded by pale skin turned pink from crying. A full mouth whose beauty was long ago poisoned by lies. The curved shell of mortal human ears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turns her back on the girl in the mirror. That girl is weak. That girl is human.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That girl is </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and she knows it—</span>
  <em>
    <span>hates it</span>
  </em>
  <span>—but that doesn’t mean she has to accept it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jude stokes the fire in her hearth, coaxing the little flame to illuminate her chambers, and then gathers her little vials of poisons from where she stores them, hidden and out of sight of prying eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wraithberry. Blusher mushroom. Everapple. Deathsweet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One by one, by drop or petal or seed, she places them on her tongue, imagines them sinking through her skin and into her veins. She feels less human afterwards, for certain. Her head spins and she wants to close her eyes against the nausea that strikes her, but she can’t. She is afraid of what might wait for her in the darkness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, she finds Nightfell from its place on her wall, slides the blade from its scabbard and admires its gleam in the flickering firelight. She lets the sheath fall to the floor, stepping over it to the open space at the centre of her room. The heft of the weapon is comforting as she settles into a fighting stance. In the mirror on the wall across from her, her opponent does the same. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her weak, mortal, human opponent. But Jude has poison in her veins and live steel in her hands, and she is ready. She is dangerous. She lifts her blade, angling it at the girl in the mirror.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaw set, Jude makes her first cut.</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Virtues & Vices</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Cardan Greenbriar, High King of Elfhame, hasn’t slept in three days. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s just that no matter how he tries to get comfortable, it still feels like something is missing. Or, perhaps, someone...</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Shout out to afexiss and protong, who commented on the first chapter and gave me the idea for this continuation. It would have been a one-shot but y'all are BRILLIANT so here's a part two aha! (PS: This is probably the spiciest thing I’ve ever written. Take that as you will.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <p></p>
  <div class="">
    <p>Cardan can’t sleep. For the third night in a row, he tosses and turns in his too-big bed with his too-many pillows and wonders why in the world he is unable to find a comfortable position. He seeks rest on his side, chases sleep on his stomach, and even flops out like a starfish, flat on his back with his long limbs splayed across the mattress. Nothing works. No matter how he tries, he still feels as though something is missing.</p>
  </div>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Eventually he relents and takes to pacing his chambers, giving in to the restless energy that hums endlessly beneath his skin, jolting him into wakefulness. The land beneath him gives a tremor and he sighs. It’s been happening for weeks now, these infinitesimal little ripples through the earth, these shudders, as though the islands themselves are waking from their slumber, responding to his energy.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’s noticed it, the subtle signs of his power as his life, his blood, are interwoven with the very fabric of the ground on which Faerie stands.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It fills him with more than a little dread.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The earth grumbles again as the emotion lurches against the mental restraints he has put on them. His stomach, too, is tied in knots, but he tries to ignore it. He’s very good at ignoring… things. Distractions. Music that is loud, clothes that are just the slightest bit too tight. People.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But tonight, Cardan is bored and, with the ground trembling every so often beneath him, he thinks it would not be wise to find escape in a drink as he usually does. No, he decides, drinking right now, when he is unable to control his growing connection with the land, would be a decidedly bad idea. And Cardan is not in the business of buying into bad ideas.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Oh, no. Cardan is much more inclined toward <em>terrible</em> ideas; the more horrendous it makes him feel, the better.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And so Cardan, son of Eldred, High King of Elfhame, selects his most horrible, most elegant night robe, and calls his guards to accompany him on a quest.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>~~~</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cardan stands outside her door, wrapped in his night robes, his guards flanking him on either side. There is a pit in his stomach and he thinks that maybe he should turn around. The ground trembles again, far away, but he feels it. He knocks.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It is a small eternity before the door opens, and when it finally does, it is not her who greets him, but haunted walnut eyes and the deadly gleam of steel levelled at his throat. His guards draw their own weapons and he wonders if perhaps his sleepless nights have finally caught up with him because he simply waves them off.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Stand down.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The words are casual and he is not certain whether they are spoken for the guards or for Jude. To her credit, the girl lowers her sword, though she keeps it between them, and he is fully aware that she can bury it in his gut within a moment’s notice, if she so desires.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Any sane man would have walked away.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cardan does not feel particularly sane tonight.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Your Majesty,” Jude says, voice flat. Her eyes, lined with dark circles, have not left his own.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He raises a brow, as if to say, ‘<em>is that it?</em>’</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When she says nothing more, he frowns. He got dressed up for this and she hasn’t even the decency to tell him he looks hideous.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He gestures past her, into the dim light of her room. “May I?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Since when do you ask?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You have a sword.” His eyes track to the weapon in her grasp. She huffs and steps out of his way, swinging the door wider. His guards move to follow but he raises a hand, halting them in their tracks. “You can wait outside. Or leave, I don’t care.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>No, he is definitely not feeling sane.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He notices them eyeing Jude’s blade as they take up their posts on either side of the door. She closes it in their faces and leans back against it. Despite her valiant effort at appearing casual, he can’t help noticing the way her shoulders are set, her sword still in hand.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“What do you want,” she says.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He tilts his head, taking her in. The chestnut locks framing her face are damp, as though she has just gotten out of a bath, but her skin is gleaming with sweat and she is breathing a little too hard. The calculating gleam that usually fills her eyes is missing; she just looks weary.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cardan finds himself voicing a question that he has often wondered but never dared speak: “Are you okay?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Why do you care?” she retorts, jaw clenching.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His brows draw together. Definitely not okay. His Jude would have lied through her teeth before even <em>hinting</em> that something was wrong.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Jude, what happened?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Nothing. If that’s all, you can leave.” She reaches for the doorknob.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“<em>Jude</em>,” he repeats, and she freezes.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She looks almost panicked, which makes him panic, because since when does Jude Duarte, puppet master of the Crown of Faerie, panic? He steps toward her.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Talk to me, Jude. Please?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She won't meet his eyes as she says, "I told you already. I have nothing to say."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Let me help."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Her jaw clenches as she turns her head away. "You can't help me, Cardan. Not when you're the problem in the first place."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He feels himself flinch. Feels the earth quiver in response.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>What has he done? He hasn't even talked to her for days. His mind scrambles for an answer, but he comes up empty-handed.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Jude, I—why?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She lifts one shoulder, her lips twisting into a bitter half-smile. "You told me the truth," she says simply, and his brow furrows as he frowns.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"The truth about what? When?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She turns away, but not before he sees her eyes close, as though that will protect her from whatever it is that haunts her. From him.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Monster</em>, the shadows whisper to him. <em>All you do is hurt people, without even trying</em>. He pushes the voices back.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Jude, please talk to me," he begs. "What did I say? What <em>truth</em> did I tell you?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Her next words are so soft that he almost doesn't hear her—an admission of guilt. A plea in the dark. "I don't belong here."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cardan tries to hide his surprise. "What is that supposed to mean? Of course you belong here."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When she turns to glare at him sidelong, she can't muster her usual poison. "No, I don't. I never have. I'm human. No matter what I do, or how hard I try, I will always be human." Her voice cracks. "I will always be… I will never be strong enough."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cardan reaches out before he can stop himself, touching her shoulder. He wants to ask where she got such an idea, but he has a fairly good guess.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Jude, you are the strongest person I know," he says, and he must mean it because the words roll so easily off his tongue.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Her answering laugh is bitter. It scratches at his ears and grates at his heart.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"How can I be?" she says, finally meeting his eyes. "I have no magic. I can't glamour anyone. Up until this year, I had to carry bundles of plants around to keep myself from losing my mind over a few pretty words!"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Magic does not equate strength."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Says the faerie High King of Elfhame."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"And who put that crown on my head?" He holds her gaze, a pointed look on his face.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"A dirty mortal liar."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"A cunning mortal spy who fought all odds and did what she believed was best to keep her little brother safe.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"You may not show it all the time, Jude, but you are kind, in your own way. You are selfless and brave. Every day you put your life on the line for those who don't deserve it," he gestures to himself, "and you face each challenge that presents itself and come out the other side. You are courageous in situations where I would cower."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She snorts. "You make me sound virtuous. I am none of those things, Cardan. I am selfish, because I am only kind to keep myself from pain. I am reckless, not brave. And most of all, I am terrified every day. I do not have courage; I survive."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Well," he concedes, "perhaps not <em>virtuous</em>, exactly. However, my point still stands: you have done more than any one of us to deserve your place here." He catches her eyes, holding her gaze steadily as he tells her the one truth he knows for certain: "Jude Duarte, my sweet villain, you belong in Faerie."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"I'm still human," she says.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He raises a brow. "That doesn't make you weak."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Doesn't it? I can't do the things you can," she whispers, as though that were something of which she should be ashamed.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Perhaps you cannot glamour us with magic," he shrugs, "but your words bewitch just the same." Far beneath his feet, the heart of the land pulses in agreement. He tries to ignore the way his own heart pounds in his ears, how his breath catches in his throat as she draws closer.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"You mean I'm a liar." She is glaring up at him, but it holds none of her usual heat. The dim light from the hearth casts shadows over the smooth planes of her face, and he finds himself reaching for her, brushing curled fingers down her cheek so gently they barely make contact.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Yes." His voice is hoarse and the words that follow come out barely louder than a breath: "And I worship each wicked word that falls from your villainous mouth."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>One step is all it takes to close the gap between them. One step, and his mouth is on hers, sweet and soft and delightfully sinful. Hesitant. But he might as well be flying, the way his stomach knots. He marvels at the way her kisses make him feel, the way <em>she</em> feels beneath his hands, as he draws her in.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Usually the thought of Jude so close brings revulsion rising in his throat like bile—or at the very least, mild disgust. But in this moment, he feels none of it. Perhaps he is getting a little too used to her. The corners of his lips lift in a wry half-smile. Perhaps he doesn’t mind.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He pulls her closer and she gasps against his mouth, causing a delicious kind of heat to rise in him. Her fingers tangle in his hair, tugging, insistent, as she presses against him. His skin burns everywhere they touch.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Jude breaks away from his kiss to lean her forehead against his chest, panting, as he traces the curve of her spine. One of her hands slides down his neck to rest over his pounding heart.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Cardan.” Shivers crawl up his spine at the sound of his name on her lips. He presses a kiss onto her hair.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Jude,” he murmurs. “Tell me a lie.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When she meets his gaze, he can’t quite decipher the emotion on her face. It scalds him and he wants to bask in it.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I hate you.” The words are reverent, barely audible, and he savours them, eyes closed, breathing them in—breathing <em>her</em> in. The salt on her skin, her breaths mingling with his own as they cling to each other in the near-dark.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He feels as though this is some cruel dream, as though his subconscious is taunting him with the one thing he really wants. The one thing he can never have.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But when he opens his eyes, she is still there, still pressed against him, her walnut eyes fixed on his face. She has stolen his air, and he is in no particular rush to get it back.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ears, fingers brushing her cheek.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I don’t hate you,” he says at last. His own truth to counter her lie.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The words twist around them, intertwining in a dance that he feels in the very depths of his soul. As she tilts her face up to meet lips, her hands find their way to his collar, pushing back the fabric of his robe until it slides from his shoulders and pools on the floor.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She plays with the hem of his shirt, tugging at it, lifting it slightly with a tantalizing brush of her fingers against his skin. Her palms are warm, gliding up the smooth skin of his stomach, his chest, until she pulls back. He helps her pull the garment over his head and toss it away. She traces the lines of the whip scars on his back with shaking fingers and presses her lips to a particularly ugly one that curves over his shoulder.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His skin ignites under her touch, each kiss setting him ablaze, searing a path along his collarbone, his throat, the line of his jaw, until he is burning, burning, burning. Until there is nothing left but her. Until his whole world is <em>Jude</em> and he exists only to be devoured by the fire she carries in her veins.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>Jude, Jude, Jude. </em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She will be his undoing.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The ground shudders beneath him, the strongest he has ever felt, making them stumble. She catches herself, fingers digging into his shoulders before taking a step back, studying the floor. She glances up at him, and something in his face must condemn him because he can practically see it in her eyes as she makes the connections and then says:</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Did you just—”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I think I may have,” he says dumbly. When she laughs, he almost wishes for a sinkhole to swallow him up. But—that’s his Jude, and she is laughing—truly, genuinely laughing—and it’s because of him. A small, sheepish smile finds its way to his mouth.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“It’s been going on for weeks,” he confesses, “but never like this. Usually it’s so small and so far away, I only notice it through whatever magic it is that ties me to the land.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Jude looks as though she is trying to hold in a smile. “So… it’s responding to your emotions?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“It appears so,” he nods, and she bursts out laughing, stepping into him and resting her forehead against his bare chest. He is not quite certain what to do with her like this. He has seen her angry, seen her plot, seen ruthlessness and even desire—but never once, to his recollection, has he seen her so… joyful. So soft and bright, as though the inferno has gentled to flickering candlelight, bathing him in the soft caresses of her gentle flame.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Carefully, afraid that he might break the spell should he move too quickly, he slides his arms around her, marvelling at how <em>right</em> it feels to simply hold her, and be held in return.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She turns her face up to him, the sparkle of amusement still dancing in her eyes.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Formidable</em>, he thinks, studying the round curve of her cheek, the cut of her jaw, the swirling colours in her irises. Committing her to memory.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Her skin flushes pink as she reaches up to cup his face, her thumb caressing his cheekbone.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Formidable,” she says, and he realises with a start that he spoke the word aloud.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A matching blush rises on his own skin, as he lays his palm atop hers, drawing it to his mouth to press soft kisses to her fingertips, holding her gaze all the while.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She is hesitating on something, as though she wishes to speak but doesn’t know how.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Jude?” he murmurs.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Her eyes flicker away and then back to his. She bites her lip and fixes her gaze on her hands, pressed against his chest. When she speaks her voice is faint, barely a whisper.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Stay?” she asks. “Just, for a little while. Stay with me.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cardan catches her chin with a gentle finger, guiding her to meet his gaze. Her face is sweet, flushed and uncertain, and he kisses the tip of her nose.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Yes.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And that is how, after three restless nights and with Jude tucked against him, Cardan Greenbriar, High King of Elfhame and willing servant to the most wicked mind in Faerie, finally finds rest.</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I literally started writing this almost immediately after posting S&amp;N but the I just hit so many blocks while writing it and then I wanted to get it edited and none of my usual editors were available right away so,, yeah it was a mess but it’s here now! Hope you enjoyed, and please leave kudos and a comment to let me know what you thought!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello! As always, thank you so much for taking time out of your day (or night aha) to read my fic! It genuinely means the world to me, dear reader! Feel free to leave kudos and/or let me know your thoughts in the comments—I always love hearing from you!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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